1. Field of the Invention
This disclosure relates to a substation automation system, and particularly, to a gateway apparatus for configuring a communication network of a substation automation system.
2. Background of the Invention
A substation automation system has been researched and applied for minimizing maintenance and repair costs for a substation by minimizing roles of persons for manipulation and monitoring within the substation. In such substation automation system, a real-time based industrial embedded system has been used in the related art as a communication network. In other words, the communication network has been configured and operated by a structure of a system, which includes a multi-layered supporting rack (simply referred to as a rack) having a standardized size and connected with, namely, a connector and a data communication circuit board at a rear side thereof, and an electronic device connected to the corresponding rear connector for each layer by a plug-in method (i.e., a method of connecting a plurality of connection pins to a connector having a plurality of connection holes corresponding to the connection pins) and having an input/output module. Especially, for data communication between Intelligent Electronic Devices (IME), such as a digital protection relay, as the electronic device, a VERSA Module Eurocard bus ((VME) bus), which is an industrial parallel data bus, has been widely used in the aspects of high-speed data communication with low costs,
In recent time, the substation automation is required to connect every communication system and intelligent electronic device within the substation via an Ethernet as a serial communication network, and generate, store and manage in a file unit every engineering information (data) necessary for management of the substation. Those engineering files employ a file format commonly useable by all of the communication systems and intelligent electronic devices within the substation. Accordingly, the corresponding communication systems and intelligent electronic devices receive and process the engineering files and report the result, thereby automatically managing the substation.
The change in the substation technology requires the change in software configuration of physical components and operating system programs of the communication systems and the intelligent electronic devices installed in the substation. Hence, a file system and a system having a computer architecture capable of performing a multi-task processing function are needed.
In physical components in the computer architecture, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus as a serial data bus may be used as a data bus. Also, in every communication device and intelligent electronic device within the substation, the VME bus as the industrial parallel data bus, as aforementioned, is usually used as the data bus. That is, the different data buses are used so as to be incompatible. Consequently, the architecture of the existing system should be drastically modified or a product should be replaced, which may cause an increase in costs.